13 top Chromebook tools for business

Get your Chromebook ready for workChromebooks aren’t the anomaly in the workplace they used to be. Their easy administration, quick setup, and low learning curve have made them a successful and viable alternative to computers based on Windows or MacOS.For many, the major knock remains that Chromebooks can’t handle more sophisticated tasks given their reliance on web apps. One of Google’s solutions to this is bringing the Play Store to Chromebooks, empowering developers to package their Android apps for Chrome OS. The selection right now is pretty small, but the new Android-on-Chrome capabilities can be effective in the right spots.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: Huawei plays “The Price Is Right” with Mate 9, Honor 6X (with video)

In some ways, the smartphone business resembles the movie business. The general public knows more about the major releases from big companies because that's what the companies push and the media writes about. But in both the phone and movie industries, there are hundreds of smaller releases targeted at very specific markets -- and if you're not in those markets, you may never hear about them.As a result, the majority of smartphone reviews you'll read about are for top-of-the-line flagship phones selling for roughly $800. It's a little unusual for a manufacturer to make a big deal about phones in the second or third tier of the market. Yet that's just what Huawei is doing with the Mate 9 and Honor 6X, two phones that represent good-to-excellent value but would otherwise not set the world on fire.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft: Upgrade .Net for better garbage collection

Microsoft is encouraging developers to move to the 4.6.2 version of the .Net Framework, so they can benefit from significant changes to the garbage collector, which provides automatic memory management..Net Framework 4.6.2 was released late last summer, but Microsoft is now advising upgrades to take advantage of benefits in object handling. These changes were made in order to improve the framework's performance and to allow the garbage collector to operate more efficiently, Microsoft said. Garbage collection enables developers to build applications without needing to free memory; it also allocates objects on the managed heap and reclaims objects no longer in use.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A new service for the less techie criminals

Sketchy charactersImage by ThinkstockYou’ve heard of big business owners like Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Warren Buffet. However, did you know there’s a long list of business owners, all of who have access to millions of dollars at their fingertips, that you’ll never hear about. These people are the owners of crimeware-as-a-service (CaaS) businesses. For underground cybercriminals, CaaS provides a new dimension to cybercrime by making it more organized, automated and accessible to criminals with limited technical skills. Today, cybercriminals can develop, advertise and sell anything from a botnet to a browser exploit pack or DDoS attack toolkits. Aditya K Sood, director of security and cloud threat labs at Blue Coat Systems, a part of Symantec, details how cybercriminals can obtain sensitive data, like credit card numbers, names and addresses, with just a couple of clicks and a payment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A new service for the less techie criminals

Sketchy charactersImage by ThinkstockYou’ve heard of big business owners like Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Warren Buffet. However, did you know there’s a long list of business owners, all of who have access to millions of dollars at their fingertips, that you’ll never hear about. These people are the owners of crimeware-as-a-service (CaaS) businesses. For underground cybercriminals, CaaS provides a new dimension to cybercrime by making it more organized, automated and accessible to criminals with limited technical skills. Today, cybercriminals can develop, advertise and sell anything from a botnet to a browser exploit pack or DDoS attack toolkits. Aditya K Sood, director of security and cloud threat labs at Blue Coat Systems, a part of Symantec, details how cybercriminals can obtain sensitive data, like credit card numbers, names and addresses, with just a couple of clicks and a payment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why Containers Are Crap

I appreciated this rant by @alicegoldfuss on a impractical parts of running containers. Not many people talk about the downsides.

(shame its not on a blog somewhere where it would be readable)

Facebook appoints former Xiaomi exec Hugo Barra to head VR business

Facebook has appointed former Xiaomi executive Hugo Barra to lead its virtual reality initiatives, including the Oculus VR business that was acquired in 2014.The appointment was announced by the company's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said that Barra will lead all of Facebook's virtual reality efforts including the Oculus team.Facebook's decision to hire Barra as vice president of virtual reality may have been influenced in part by his exposure to the Chinese market, which is forecast by IDC to account for 20 percent of worldwide virtual reality head-mounted displays next year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook appoints Xiaomi exec Hugo Barra to head VR business

Facebook has appointed Xiaomi executive Hugo Barra to lead its virtual reality initiatives, including the Oculus VR business that was acquired in 2014.The appointment was announced by the company's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said that Barra will lead all of Facebook's virtual reality efforts including the Oculus team.Facebook's decision to hire Barra as vice president of virtual reality may have been influenced in part by his exposure to the Chinese market, which is forecast by IDC to account for 20 percent of worldwide virtual reality head-mounted displays next year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Password-free security uses voice, user behavior to verify identity

Tired of conventional passwords? So is Nuance Communications, a tech firm that is promoting the human voice as a way to secure user accounts.The company’s voice biometric product is among the technologies that promise to replace traditional -- and often vulnerable -- password authentication systems, which can be easy to hack. That isn’t the case with Nuance’s solution, the company claims.   “To determine if it’s you or not, we are looking at over 100 different characteristics of your voice,” said Brett Beranek, Nuance’s director of product strategy.The problem with passwords The need to move beyond passwords hasn’t been more urgent, given that hackers are routinely finding ways to steal them. Last year, Yahoo, LinkedIn and Dropbox all reported major data breaches involving account details such as email addresses and hashed passwords.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Password-free security uses voice, user behavior to verify identity

Tired of conventional passwords? So is Nuance Communications, a tech firm that is promoting the human voice as a way to secure user accounts.The company’s voice biometric product is among the technologies that promise to replace traditional -- and often vulnerable -- password authentication systems, which can be easy to hack. That isn’t the case with Nuance’s solution, the company claims.   “To determine if it’s you or not, we are looking at over 100 different characteristics of your voice,” said Brett Beranek, Nuance’s director of product strategy.The problem with passwords The need to move beyond passwords hasn’t been more urgent, given that hackers are routinely finding ways to steal them. Last year, Yahoo, LinkedIn and Dropbox all reported major data breaches involving account details such as email addresses and hashed passwords.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Get 72% off NordVPN Virtual Private Network Service For a Limited Time – Deal Alert

NordVPN gives you a private and fast path through the public Internet. All of your data is protected every step of the way using revolutionary 2048-bit SSL encryption even a supercomputer can’t crack. Access Hulu, Netflix, BBC, ITV, Sky, RaiTV and much more from anywhere in the world. Unmetered access for 6 simultaneous devices. You're sure to find dozens of good uses for a VPN. Take advantage of the current 72% off deal that makes all of this available to you for just $3.29/month (access deal here). This is a special deal available for a limited time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pharmaceutical giant partners to push analytics

Merck KGaA is getting cozier with Silicon Valley, seeking partnerships with leading technology companies and universities to further its fortunes in a pharmaceutical industry undergoing a significant transformation around software and data, says CIO Alessandro De Luca. The German pharmaceutical firm, best known for its cancer and multiple sclerosis drugs, earlier this month inked partnership inked with Palantir, a maker of big data analytics software.Palantir will help Merck research which patients will respond to certain drugs to improve patient outcomes, the company said in a statement. Merck will eventually use Palantir's software with other commercial applications, including artificial intelligence software, to help predict drug demand and automate the supply chain.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump fence-sitting on encryption backdoors can’t last

It looks like the Donald Trump administration is interested in encryption backdoors, but, like his predecessor’s, so far it has fallen short of coming out for them or against them. Trump himself famously urged a boycott of Apple for refusing to help the FBI crack an iPhone used by the terrorist who attacked in San Bernardino, Calif., which indicated he favored backdoors. But that was last year. The latest comes from Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, who says he favors strong encryption but also favors law enforcement being able to “overcome encryption” when necessary.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump fence-sitting on encryption backdoors can’t last

It looks like the Donald Trump administration is interested in encryption backdoors, but, like his predecessor’s, so far it has fallen short of coming out for them or against them. Trump himself famously urged a boycott of Apple for refusing to help the FBI crack an iPhone used by the terrorist who attacked in San Bernardino, Calif., which indicated he favored backdoors. But that was last year. The latest comes from Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, who says he favors strong encryption but also favors law enforcement being able to “overcome encryption” when necessary.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why Collaboration was Key in the Successful Transition of the IANA Functions

On September 30, 2016, the contract between the U.S. government and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) over the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) ended. This marked a process of almost 20 years that started with the privatization of the Domain Name System (DNS) in 1998. With the contract expired, taking stock of the process becomes critical. What unfolded for more two years was not just about the transition of a set of functions, critical to the operation of the Internet: it was also about the ability of the Internet community to stay true to the practices that have historically made the Internet evolve and work better.

Konstantinos Komaitis
Leslie Daigle
Phil Roberts
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